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| Locusts: The 8th Plague | |
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| Directed by | Ian Gilmour |
| Written by | D.R. Rosen |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Lorenzo Senatore |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | Pierpaolo Tiano |
Release date |
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Running time | 88 minutes |
Locusts: The 8th Plague is a 2005 natural horror film directed by Ian Gilmour and starring Dan Cortese, Julie Benz and David Keith about a group of farmers and scientists that battle a swarm of flesh-eating locusts that have escaped from a secret genetics laboratory in Idaho.
The film starts in a genetics laboratory 15 miles outside Prairie, Idaho. Inside the laboratory, Gary Wolf (David Keith) and Russ Snow (Jeff Fahey) have made a completely new species of locust that is genetically engineered to eat insects that destroy crops. In the main room in the crop dome, Russ releases the locusts into a crop field filled with insects for one minute, luring them back into the main holding pen using a strong pheromone lure. One of the main vents jams midway through the process and Gary sends one of the Silogen workers into the tunnel system. The worker finds that the vent is stuck in the open position and after scanning the holding pen, the locusts attack the worker and he is killed within a few seconds. The locusts then escape from the Silogen Research Facility through the open vent.
Meanwhile, on a small farm near Prairie, Colt Dunton (Dan Cortese) is producing a new kind of organic pesticide which he introduces to his friends, Hank Odem and his wife Agatha. Colt leaves the farm to check his pesticide and Hank starts his husker blade to harvest the corn. The blade suddenly jams, Hank gets out to investigate and discovers the remains of a bull that has been almost completely eaten. He radios Agatha and tells her about the bull. Agatha hears something in the corn and discovers the remains of her son, Mike. Grief-stricken, she starts to panic. Hank heads towards his combine and discovers that it is covered in locusts which attack and kill him. Agatha runs through the field and is also attacked and killed by the locusts. Colt arrives on the scene and finds the dead body of a locust. He runs to the medical hospital where his girlfriend, Vicky (Julie Benz), works as a veterinarian. Vicky and Colt then hear reports of cows and farm animals dying in the same way as the bull on Hank's farm. Vicky and Colt examine the remains of a dead cow and find a locust in it.
Meanwhile in Prairie, a family having a picnic is attacked by the locusts and their son is the only survivor. A State Trooper (Atanas Srebrev) takes him to a hospital. Colt examines a dead locust that was on the car that the Trooper used to bring in the child and discovers that it is a juvenile. Vicky tries to tell him that the locusts were all drones but the examination proves that the locusts are breeding.
Colt, Vicky, USDA Agent Greg Ballard (Kirk Woller) and a group of exterminators find the locusts' nest and spray pesticides in an attempt to kill the larvae and locusts. This irritates the locusts and they attack the group. Colt, Vicky and Greg are the only survivors. This leads Colt to wonder why they were not attacked. Back at the headquarters of the USDA, Greg decides that the only option they have is to spray the locusts with UD-66, the most dangerous chemical weapon on the planet. Vicky tells Greg to issue the order despite Colt telling her that if they spray it, plants will not grow back for 10 years.
Meanwhile, the swarm of locusts attacks an amusement park off the major highway. Many people at the amusement park are eaten alive by the locusts. Back at the laboratory, Colt (who had taken sample larvae from the nest) examines the locust larva to try to figure out why they did not attack Vicky and him; he then tries on some live adult locusts and discovers that chemical pesticides attract them. Greg then gathers a large amount of livestock in a field and the locusts arrive. He orders a helicopter to drop the pesticide which had been changed to UD-45. Despite Colt trying to get to the field to tell Greg and Vicky what he has discovered, the helicopter drops the pesticide and the pilots are attacked by the swarm, destroying the helicopter. Colt then decides to use the organic pesticide he developed on the locust swarm which has now attacked the town of Prairie and during the attack Gary who was trying to flee is killed by the locusts. Colt flies a plane over the city and drops the pesticide and the swarm of locusts dies instantly. But before they can celebrate, two larger swarms appear over the city and this time, Vicky's father, Russ, decides to lure the locusts into the crop dome using the pheromone lure. The pheromone works and the locusts fly into the crop dome. Russ then sacrifices his life by going into the dome and programming it to self-destruct. The crop dome explodes, killing all of the locusts, but there it is one more truck with possibly with hundreds of hungry locusts in the rear compartment headed towards another crop dome. The boxes read: Live Specimens.
Locusts are a group of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances they become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming gregarious. No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions.
Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving en masse or migrating in some direction. It is a highly interdisciplinary topic. As a term, swarming is applied particularly to insects, but can also be applied to any other entity or animal that exhibits swarm behaviour. The term flocking or murmuration can refer specifically to swarm behaviour in birds, herding to refer to swarm behaviour in tetrapods, and shoaling or schooling to refer to swarm behaviour in fish. Phytoplankton also gather in huge swarms called blooms, although these organisms are algae and are not self-propelled the way animals are. By extension, the term "swarm" is applied also to inanimate entities which exhibit parallel behaviours, as in a robot swarm, an earthquake swarm, or a swarm of stars.
Beekeeping is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made hives, by humans. Most such bees are honey bees in the genus Apis, but other honey-producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect their honey and other products that the hive produce, to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an apiary or "bee yard".
Félix d'Hérelle was a French microbiologist. He was co-discoverer of bacteriophages and experimented with the possibility of phage therapy. D'Herelle has also been credited for his contributions to the larger concept of applied microbiology.
Pest control is the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, a member of the animal kingdom that impacts adversely on human activities. The human response depends on the importance of the damage done and will range from tolerance, through deterrence and management, to attempts to completely eradicate the pest. Pest control measures may be performed as part of an integrated pest management strategy.
Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago.
The desert locust is a species of locust, a periodically swarming, short-horned grasshopper in the family Acrididae. They are found primarily in the deserts and dry areas of northern and eastern Africa, Arabia, and southwest Asia. During population surge years, they may extend north into parts of western Spain and southern Italy, south into Eastern Africa, and east in northern India. The desert locust shows periodic changes in its body form and can change in response to environmental conditions, over several generations, from a solitary, shorter-winged, highly fecund, non-migratory form to a gregarious, long-winged, and migratory phase in which they may travel long distances into new areas. In some years, they may thus form locust plagues, invading new areas, where they may consume all vegetation including crops, and at other times, they may live unnoticed in small numbers.
The Indianmeal moth, also spelled Indian meal moth and Indian-meal moth, is a pyraloid moth of the family Pyralidae. Alternative common names are weevil moth, pantry moth, flour moth or grain moth. The almond moth and the raisin moth are commonly confused with the Indian-meal moth due to similar food sources and appearance. The species was named for feeding on Indian meal or cornmeal, and does not occur natively in India. It is also not to be confused with the Mediterranean flour moth, another common pest of stored grains.
Swarm is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character's entire body is composed of bees, and is mainly featured as an enemy of Spider-Man.
The cereal leaf beetle is a significant crop pest, described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.
A kairomone is a semiochemical, emitted by an organism, which mediates interspecific interactions in a way that benefits an individual of another species which receives it and harms the emitter. This "eavesdropping" is often disadvantageous to the producer. The kairomone improves the fitness of the recipient and in this respect differs from an allomone and a synomone. The term is mostly used in the field of entomology. Two main ecological cues are provided by kairomones; they generally either indicate a food source for the receiver, or the presence of a predator, the latter of which is less common or at least less studied.
The environmental effects of pesticides describe the broad series of consequences of using pesticides. The unintended consequences of pesticides is one of the main drivers of the negative impact of modern industrial agriculture on the environment. Pesticides, because they are toxic chemicals meant to kill pest species, can effect non-target species, such as plants, animals and humans. Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, because they are sprayed or spread across entire agricultural fields. Other agrochemicals, such as fertilizers, can also have negative effects on the environment.
The fall armyworm is a species in the order Lepidoptera and one of the species of the fall armyworm moths distinguished by their larval life stage. The term "armyworm" can refer to several species, often describing the large-scale invasive behavior of the species' larval stage. It is regarded as a pest and can damage and destroy a wide variety of crops, which causes large economic damage. Its scientific name derives from frugiperda, which is Latin for lost fruit, named because of the species' ability to destroy crops. Because of its propensity for destruction, the fall armyworm's habits and possibilities for crop protection have been studied in depth. It is also a notable case for studying sympatric speciation, as it appears to be diverging into two species currently. Another remarkable trait of the larva is that they consistently practice cannibalism, despite its fitness costs.
Chloridea virescens, commonly known as the tobacco budworm, is a moth of the family Noctuidae found throughout the eastern and southwestern United States along with parts of Central America and South America.
Big Shots is a 1987 American comedy adventure film directed by Robert Mandel, starring Ricky Busker and Darius McCrary.
Mega Python vs. Gatoroid is a 2011 monster, science-fiction, disaster film by The Asylum, directed by Mary Lambert, and starring pop singers Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. The film premiered theatrically in Texas and premiered on television on January 29, 2011, on Syfy in the United States before being released on home video on June 21, 2011.
In 2012, Madagascar had an upsurge in the size of its Malagasy migratory locust populations. In November of that year, the government issued a locust alert, saying that conditions were right for swarming of the pest insects. In February 2013, Cyclone Haruna struck the country, creating optimal conditions for locust breeding. By late March 2013, approximately 50% of the country was infested by swarms of locusts, with each swarm consisting of more than one billion insects. The authorities changed the situation to plague status. According to one eyewitness,"You don't see anything except locusts. You turn around, there are locusts everywhere".
"Infestation" is the second episode of the second season of the CBS drama series Under the Dome, and the fifteenth episode overall. The episode premiered on July 7, 2014.
2019–2021 locust infestation is a pest outbreak of desert locusts which is threatening the food supply across the regions of East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. The outbreak is the worst in 70 years in Kenya and the worst in 25 years in Ethiopia, Somalia and India. The plague began in June 2019 and continued into 2020, although locust swarms have experienced steady declines in population and geographical reach from May to October, and as of November 2020, primarily found in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.
Locusts is a 2005 natural horror television film directed by David Jackson and starring Lucy Lawless, Dylan Neal, John Heard and Gregory Alan Williams as a group of scientists, farmers and government officials as they attempt to stop a swarm of genetically engineered locusts from devouring the United States.